Generative AI: The View from Data & Analytics Leaders—Proceed with Care

The rapid adoption of generative AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Bard raises a host of new C-suite questions and concerns for leaders to address.

• What opportunities should we focus on?
• How do we manage access?
• How do we protect our proprietary information?
• Should we be moving faster?

In early May, Members of Data & Analytics Executives Council at The Conference Board discussed these questions and steps being taken to address them.

Insight for What’s Ahead: Data and analytics leaders are taking a measured approach to generative AI, balancing the desire to quickly learn about and leverage this new technology with the need to protect proprietary assets and corporate reputation. Expect the “proceed with care” approach to continue as leaders attempt to balance the opportunity for efficiencies generative AI provides with corporate and brand risks.

Common Actions

Generative AI has quickly become the number one priority for many corporate and analytics leaders as they try to manage growing interest and demand while mitigating risk and not falling behind competitors.

The common actions currently taken include:

• Restricting employee access to generative AI public sites to reduce the likelihood proprietary information is shared within them.
• Creating private, secure environments within their cloud solution to experiment and learn in a purposeful, responsible manner. This might include creating multiple sandboxes within Microsoft’s Azure environment for teams to experiment with.
• Determining who should lead the oversight efforts, particularly if a formal structure to AI governance has not been established. The governance effort may be led by a cross-disciplinary team or a specific function, depending on the scope of each department, company structure, and geographic reach. Functions frequently involved include data analytics/research, information security, IT, and legal.
• Educating themselves and others on the capabilities, limitations, landscape, and expected evolution of generative AI. A plethora of information and advice is available, including from consulting firms, technology providers, and analytics experts—and our hub, AI: The Next Transformation.
• Experimenting with the tools to see how they can deliver value. To date, these experiments have confirmed generative AI’s ability to “streamline” existing processes while reinforcing the need for continued human involvement.

The rapid evolution of generative AI capabilities requires corporate leaders to continue to “proceed with care” through rapid test-and-learn processes and capabilities to quickly scale high-value applications while ensuring the steps required to mitigate risk are firmly in place.

For a glossary of terms and background information, click the image below.